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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until December 02, 2024

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Arguing For Civilization: The West in Conservative Imagination Across the Twentieth Century

Jacob, House C.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3358-9133
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1637670722342834

Abstract Details

2021, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History.
This project examines the idea of the West, its permutations, and its uses in ¬conservative rhetoric through the twentieth century. Exploring the West as a cultural and political idea in conservative discourse adds to the historiography of conservatism by demonstrating conservative interests outside of electoral politics. The West and the concept of Western civilization provided a common language for conservative writers. But while conservatives largely agreed with what the West was, in a general sense, they argued over its condition and, more commonly, the exact causes of what they perceived as its decline. Key was a tension within the conservative understanding of the West, a perspective that both extolled its dominance and lamented its current weakened state. The West was the birthplace of industry even while conservatives fretted about the ruinous power of modernity. It was the heartland of democracy, even though conservatives decried what they perceived as the decline of liberalism. It was superior to the East, even though conservatives worried that Western decay would infect the Orient and lead to global war. In many cases, conservatives developed these critiques in response to changes within America that they universalized to become a Western problem, adding credence to their complaints. Conservatives repeatedly referred to the West in connection to a few themes or contexts: modernity, science, religion, materialism, education, liberalism and failed leadership, and foreign policy. This project examines these themes and how they were restructured in new contexts by different authors across the century. In doing so, it demonstrates that the West and Western civilization were central to conservative thought, and it provided a thread vital to binding together different strands of conservatism across the twentieth century.
Kenneth Bindas (Advisor)
Elaine Frantz (Committee Member)
Matthew Crawford (Committee Member)
Patricia Dunmire (Committee Member)
313 p.
American History; American Studies; History
conservatism; twentieth century; intellectual history; modernism; Western civilization; antimodernism; culture wars; cultural history

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jacob, H. C. (2021). Arguing For Civilization: The West in Conservative Imagination Across the Twentieth Century [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1637670722342834

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jacob, House. Arguing For Civilization: The West in Conservative Imagination Across the Twentieth Century. 2021. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1637670722342834.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jacob, House. "Arguing For Civilization: The West in Conservative Imagination Across the Twentieth Century." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1637670722342834

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1637670722342834
© 2021, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.